Tag: aew max

Chris Jericho: AEW’s Max deal is ‘the way of the future’

Posted on by Joseph Currier

Chris Jericho believes AEW content streaming on Max is an important step for the company.

As part of AEW’s new media rights deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, Dynamite and Collision are now both simulcast live on Max in addition to their regular television channels. AEW pay-per-views will also be available to purchase on Max starting at some point this year.

Jericho told The Takedown that he believes streaming deals like this are the way of the future. He thinks cable television will “pretty much go away” at some point, so having a foothold on Max is key for AEW.

“Well, it’s kind of the way, the way of the future,” Jericho said. “I think cable television as a whole will pretty much go away at some point, because there is so much emphasis on streaming. Just the quality of the picture, the fact you can watch it whenever you want to. All of those things are such a positive. So even though we have such a great relationship with Warner Brothers and TNT and TBS, I think it’s very important that we were able to move on to Max.”

Viewership information for the Max simulcasts of Dynamite and Collision has not been made publicly available. Last week, Fightful reported that AEW content “has been among the top streamed live sports events” on Max since the Dynamite and Collision simulcasts began.

“The whole business is based on television revenue nowadays. Before it was pay-per-view and it was live attendance, and it was all that sort of thing, and now it solely rests on the television deal you can get. We’ve had ups and downs as far as ratings and demos go, but we still always do really, really well on cable. If we’re not number one or two, we’re in the top five, and at the very least the top 10, and that’s out of 1000s of shows.

In his interview with The Takedown, Jericho said that — with AEW’s new media rights deal in place — the promotion can now really concentrate on furthering the things it does well and improving the things that can be improved.

“The whole business is based on television revenue nowadays. Before it was pay per view and it was live attendance, and it was all that sort of thing, and now it solely rests on the television deal you can get. We’ve had ups and downs as far as ratings and demos go, but we still always do really, really well on cable. If we’re not number one or two, we’re in the top five, and at the very least the top 10, and that’s out of 1000s of shows,” he said.

“So, it’s a very valuable property and I think we all knew that within AEW and anybody Tony surrounds himself with, but there’s a lot of pundits and critics that still to this day don’t see how valuable AEW is and how much it’s growing. The television deal is $185 million a year. I mean, that’s next level. That’s pretty much four times that we were getting. So, I think that there was a sigh of relief, not that we didn’t know we could get it, but just now that it’s locked in, now we can get to work and really concentrate on the things that we need to concentrate on, both to continue upward ascension in some areas and to improve in others.”

Jericho is the current Ring of Honor World Champion in addition to competing on AEW programming.

WBD announces details on AEW content library availability on Max

Posted on by Joseph Currier

In a press release on Thursday, Max promoted AEW’s upcoming arrival to the streaming service and provided some details on what library content will be available at launch.

AEW Dynamite and Collision will be simulcast live on Max starting with the Fight for the Fallen edition of Dynamite from Asheville, North Carolina on New Year’s Day 2025. The shows will still air live on their regular broadcast homes (TBS and TNT respectively) in addition to this new way to watch.

Dynamite and Collision will also be available to watch on demand on Max after their live airings.

The press release notes that all Dynamite episodes from 2019 — along with all AEW pay-per-views from that year — will be available for Max subscribers to watch when AEW launches on the service on January 1. In addition to that, so will the past couple of months of AEW television programming. The remainder of the library will be added “on a rolling basis.”

“AEW Dynamite, AEW Collision, AEW Rampage and all AEW pay-per-view library content through the end of 2024, representing more than 700 hours of AEW action, will be made available on Max on a rolling basis,” the press release said. “At launch, all AEW Dynamite episodes and pay-per-views from the company’s inaugural 2019 year will be available, as well as more than two months of the most recent AEW programming that aired across WBD’s networks (select episodes will be made available shortly after launch).”

The Max component is part of AEW’s new media rights deal with Warner Bros. Discovery. It will include AEW PPVs being distributed on Max starting later in 2025, but a date has not been set for that aspect yet because Max is still developing the technology for it. Further information will be announced in the coming months.

“As previously announced, AEW and WBD will also collaborate to distribute AEW live pay-per-view events on Max, with all marketing and promotions of those PPV events exclusively centered on Max,” WBD stated. “AEW PPV distribution on Max will begin later in 2025, with additional information and pricing to be shared in the coming months.”

AEW and WBD are promoting this as a new era for the promotion with the start of the Max deal:

AEW TV deal update: WBD, PPVs, potential Fox component

Posted on by Joseph Currier

On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer gave an update on where things stand with AEW’s impending new media rights deal.

Meltzer reports that AEW & Warner Bros. Discovery have reached an agreement for their new deal. It looks like the deal will include a pay-per-view component, though Meltzer doesn’t know the exact specifics regarding how PPVs will be handled.

“Everyone knows, but the WBD deal is a done deal,” Meltzer said. “There are going to be changes, from what I gather there is going to be a pay-per-view component in this deal. Exactly what it is, I don’t know. But if they’re doubling the number [of the past media rights deal] and WBD is getting the rights to the pay-per-views, that makes doubling the number make more sense in a lot of ways — if they get that. I don’t know exactly if it’s going to be how UFC does it, if it’s going to be how WWE does it. But there is going to be a deal with Max with the pay-per-views in some form, is what it looks like.”

Since AEW applied to trademark “AEW Shockwave” last week, there have been rumors that AEW is in discussions for an additional show that would air on a Fox network. Meltzer does not believe that a deal between AEW and Fox is done yet. If the new show does come to fruition, Meltzer suspects it would not be on the main Fox network, instead airing on a different Fox channel or streaming platform.

“The Fox deal is not done. I know a lot of people have been talking about the idea on the Fox network. I would strongly suspect — I do not know — but I would very strongly suspect it would not be on the Fox network,” Meltzer said. “It would probably be another station, whether it’s FS1, whether it’s a different station, whether it’s a streaming component, I don’t know. And I don’t believe it’s a done deal either. I think it’s something that they’re working on. Although as far as the Shockwave thing, they did trademark the name of Shockwave. So they have to be pretty darn close to a deal to actually go to the lengths of trademarking the name.”